How Assassin's Creed Odyssey On Google's Project Stream Works

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the inaugural test-bed for Google’s ambitious streaming platform, Project Stream. Now that the service has launched, we’re seeing more details of just how the test is working–at least this time around.

According to an email sent to participants, Google will allow testers to play Odyssey for free until January 15, 2019. After that point, you’ll lose your access and won’t be able to continue your saved game. Streaming takes place right through the Chrome browser, and you can swap between computers by signing in with your Google account.

To speed you on your way, each account is being credited with $10 worth of in-game currency to purchase some of the game’s microtransactions. After that, though, you won’t be able to purchase more credits on your own, so you’ll need to make them count. You’ll need an Ubisoft account, and you can play with a USB controller or mouse and keyboard.

Google’s announcement came just before a similar one from Microsoft, detailing its new xCloud streaming plans. Google beat it to the testing phase, since Microsoft doesn’t plan to start rolling out its public tests until 2019. But Microsoft’s service does have one advantage that we know of so far. Google’s participant email specifies that you can’t play on a smart device, while Microsoft’s announcement made a point of mentioning you can.